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Lions provincial selections aren't good for the game

 



I found the Golden Lions Schools teams for the upcoming youth weeks, released this week, disturbing.

I have no reason to doubt the honesty of the selectors, and the players named are the best in their positions, I’m sure. But the picture painted is a very sad one. What it shows is that schools rugby in the province has all but died. People at schools are screaming bias and unfair treatment on social media. I can’t comment on that, but I do believe that an organisation that exists to promote rugby at schools in its region has done the game harm with this selection.

In short – there were 115 boys named (in the five squads of 23). And 93 percent of them come from five schools, Monument (25), Helpmekaar (23), Noordheuwel (20), KES (19) and Jeppe (19). There are three players from Northcliff, two from St John’s, and one each from Parktown, Linden and Dinamika. That’s out of 40 rugby-playing schools in the province.

I spoke to one of the teachers at Jeppe who is on the committee and he told me that they were expecting to take flak, and that the Covid-19 pandemic is responsible for the most lop-sided team lists I’ve seen in my 40-odd years of involvement.

During the Covid lockdown and its restrictions, schools who take sport seriously found ways to keep their learners active and interested. Some were very innovative and used technology well, Others, I suspect, skated close to flaunting the regulations. Of course the rugby players at those sorts of schools had a leg up over those at schools who did nothing during that period. The result has been that when play resumed in full this year the gap between the top schools and rest, which was already growing before Covid hit, suddenly got much bigger.

That’s why, apparently, there are good players at only five of our schools, and none at any of the others (apart from the handful who did get the nod).

The gap’s a reality I guess, but it’s disappointing that the powers that be aren’t using the opportunity to do what they can to remedy it. Instead, it seems they are happy to let the strong get stronger and stronger, and have the weak disappear.

It’s not the organising committee’s fault that strong are getting stronger and the weak are vanishing. It’s the result of the scorched-earth practices of the schools who lure the best of the available talent into their grade 8 intakes, and then send out raiding parties to mop up whoever might have slipped their nets, or are late developers who may have become good players within the programmes at the schools they are at.

It's part of the winning formula, and when winning is your value you don’t much care about the ruins you leave behind.

Don’t the Lions schools committee see that they have a responsibility to the schools who are battling to keep the game alive? If they simply say, ‘none of your players are worth looking at’, they are inviting the raiders in and you can’t blame the parents of good players for taking the bait.

Here’s an idea – not an original one, the Lions have actually done it before, but clearly decided not to carry on with it. Choose a few players from those struggling schools in the Welpies (C) team. That team’s results really don’t mean a thing, so why not pick the best player from each of St David’s, St Stithians, Fourways, Rand Park and Trinityhouse, for example. Producing a provincial player will do those schools much good. It will reward the efforts of those hard-working coaches, and keep the game alive for another year (which is not always a given at some schools).

And there are always one or two boys who can play at those schools – I’ve been watching them for years. Instead, however, there are six Monument boys, four from Helpmekaar. five from KES and three from Jeppe in the Welpies - a team that doesn’t go to a major week.

Good for those boys, but bad for the game, fatal even.

 

 

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